What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.

Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011) was an Anglo-American author and journalist. His books made him a prominent public intellectual and a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. He was a columnist and literary critic at Vanity Fair, Slate, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry and a variety of other media outlets. He was named one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect.

Noted journalist Christopher Hitchens squared off against College of William and Mary government professor Lawrence Wilkerson on U.S. Middle East policy Monday night. The Sadler Center’s Commonwealth Auditorium was packed to full capacity with students and faculty, who gathered to hear the Vanity Fair columnist and author debate Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Continue reading (flathatnews.com)

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Is there audio or video of this anywhere? I've long wanted Hitchens to grapple with academics, esp those that study International Relations and are familiar with the empirical and theoretical literatures. I'm not sure Wilkerson is the best guy to fill that role (I'm familiar with the subject and I've never heard of him), but at least it's a start. In the past Hitchens has dismissed social science almost as a matter of course, but I'm not sure why and no one ever presses him on the point.

I don't trust the reporter to understand the debate, much less represent it accurately, so I'd rather listen to it myself.

"In the past Hitchens has dismissed social science almost as a matter of course, but I'm not sure why and no one ever presses him on the point."

Though he hasn't endorsed "democratic peace theory" in terms IR academics would recognize (ie, tortured, unreadable prose), Hitchens is safely in that camp. As for "realists" like Wilkerson, Hitchens has been taking them on for a long time. It's also safe to say Hitchens dismisses as a matter of course realist theoreticians who bow to the great wisdom of Henry Kissinger.